What is responsible for crashing economies?

“the average citizen reflexively looked toward Washington to quickly fix the economy. The public’s limited patience meshes well with policymakers who are naturally inclined to operate on a short-term horizon (i.e., the next election). Therefore, policymakers responded with quick-fix measures with almost no regard to the long-term consequences.”   more…

Filed under: systems

Yeah, you still have cheques in the check book. What could go wrong?

“It’s time for the so-called “Nobels” to shut the hell up until and unless they explain exactly how we’re going to pay for this bout of stupidity they wish us to continue to indulge in, and instead face reality: The pain we have been avoiding cannot be made better by kicking the can down the road – it only gets worse the longer we wait to face it.” more…

Filed under: systems

Want to fix internet security?

“Government is bureaucracy (in the best sense of the word) and the bureaucrat is rewarded by how smoothly things flow: breaking things and out-of-the-box thinking is not only highly discouraged, its a punishable offense.”  more… 

11/04/11 – DARPA is on it.

 

 

Filed under: Battle

P. J. O’Rourke in Afghanistan

“in a sense, suicide bombers do aspire to be the rock stars of the Afghan insurgency (average career span being about the same in both professions).”  more…

Filed under: Battle

Okay, I will bite. Pakistan really REALLY needs some help.

“A timely and large-scale relief package is much needed. Aiding people suffering from natural disasters is always the right thing to do. Also, it is good public diplomacy. The Pakistani image of the United States changed when the U.S. led the way in delivering assistance to Pakistan after the 2005 earthquakes. Models of U.S. Army Chinook helicopters became the favorite toy for Kashmiri children.” more…

Photos Here…

And a Rebuff from WT..

Filed under: Battle

Be derned careful with whom you associate on the web, especially if you are active in fight club.

“The Hizbullah agent gained the trust of soldiers and officers that didn’t hesitate to confirm him as a “friend” once they saw he/she is friends with several of their friends from the same unit. Most of them assumed that “Reut” was just another person who served in that elite intelligence unit.”  more…

Filed under: Analysis

Ever wondered about Haiti?

“when the Spanish came back with more men, more guns and wiped out the Caribs. The Caribs went out in style: the last few just jumped off cliffs instead of letting the Europeans capture them and put them to work on the sugar cane plantations the whites were setting up.

Well, that meant a shortage of free labor, which cut into the profit margin. So the plantation owners started buying Africans. Lots and lots of Africans. Nobody’s sure how many, but it’s well into seven figures. Most of them died on the voyage, or under the whip, or from disease, but there were enough left to keep the cane plantations going. And that was important, not just to the local colonists but to France, which ruled the whole island by that time. You have to remember, the Europeans were focused on the West Indies back then. They didn’t think much of North America at the start of the 1700s. It was just a big cold wilderness with no gold, and no potential for raising the tropical crops that really made money. Barbados meant more to England than Virginia, and Hispaniola meant more to France than Canada.”

more…

Filed under: Analysis

Ahhh. War Nerd is back!

“Every June these geniuses write the same little essay about going to the cottage. 1500 words on unpacking the deck chairs and sweeping all last year’s sand out of your cottage. It helps if you can throw in some sappy family-dynamics thing from an after-school special about how this year was Grandpa’s 37th trip to the dear old lake and gosh darn it, he’s not as quick as he used to be sculling over the lawn bowls, but his spirit and love of life are as bright as a button in spite of it all.”  more…

Filed under: Leisure

From the troops – in their words.

” If you think firing a gun is loud, you don’t even know how loud that crack of the round is screaming by your head when it breaks the sound barrier when they’re flying towards you.”  more…

Filed under: Battle

The end of the welfare state.

“Democracies have made people more dependent on the state than any humanitarian necessity required. ”  more…

Filed under: systems

One of the finest works written on our current political situation.

“The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century’s Northerners and Southerners”  more…

Filed under: systems

A short explanation of the deep well Horizon situation.

” So we have “down hole leaks” — oil under colossal pressure forcing its way sideways into below-sea-bed rock formations. ”   more…

Filed under: Technicals

Understanding Corruption.

This is a discernment of how people from different cultures perceive corruption.  here…

By the way, corruption cost $1.6 Trillion a year…

Filed under: Analysis